Valentine Typewriter - and Manual

A while back I posted some photos of the Olivetti Valentine typewriter that I’d managed to pick up, an object I’d been coveting for many years. It was in great shape, and included the hard-to-find manual. I finally got around to scanning the manual.

Here’s a picture of the “cover” - the manual is simply cardboard stock printed on both sides, and held together by a piece of string through a punched hole. Very simple. (Click here for a PDF download of the whole manual if you want it - note that it’s 3.7mb)

I love the tone of the manual, which is straightforward but also quite cheery, in keeping with the industrial design of the typewriter itself:

see how crisp and sharp your VALENTINE’s typing is? If you want it to stay like this, give the letters a cleaning every now and then, say once a month. Use the nylon brush moistened with some lighter fluid or gasoline. Another tip: when you are not using the machine, lock the carriage and keep your VALENTINE in its case

(lower case first sentence, and all-caps Valentine are in the original)